


Weather Permitting

by entanglednow



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alien Planet, Dubious Consent, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-18
Updated: 2011-08-18
Packaged: 2017-10-23 07:09:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/247581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The man-eating plants tended to be specialised, and usually some sort of bright and threatening colour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weather Permitting

  
Lorne likes to think that he has experience with weird shit. The thing about the SGC - your tolerance for weird shit needs to be pretty high to start with, or you're not going to last long. They'd all learnt their lessons in another galaxy. That you needed to be ready for anything. Because space clearly wanted to kill you, eat you, have sex with you, or make you have sex with each other, in a variety of strange and unusual ways.

He'd briefly thought - hoped maybe - that the Pegasus Galaxy was going to be different. That it was more mature and not inclined to fuck you over on a whim. Until one of the teams came back painted with purple dye, and in various states of undress, talking about flowers that chased you and made you _do_ things. The Pegasus Galaxy apparently got off on messing with people just as much as their own. Lorne had hoped at the time that it hadn't taken that as a challenge.

Of course, all the preparation in the world could still be derailed by the whims of scientists. Scientists, on the whole, are not exactly on the ball. One of the other marines had summed them up once in three words. Nosey, curious and suicidal.

Lorne had figured botanists would be safer. It made sense after all. Mostly it was the tech that killed you. The man-eating plants tended to be specialised, and usually some sort of bright and threatening colour. But he's also learned that the botanists have even more of an insane love for 'poke it and see what happens' than the physicists. Botanists liked to touch things. Lorne thinks, in hindsight, that probably should have been obvious from the start.

Sheppard likes to complain that the universe has a special grudge against _his_ team. But Lorne suspects it's just because they're all really bad at resisting the urge to poke things without taking the proper precautions. Sheppard himself, has touched things he shouldn't have done, on more than one occasion. He should really know better.

Lorne is a fan of precautions, precautions are good. Gently tugging Parrish out of possible pollinating range, without breaking his concentration, or his stream of excited babble has almost become second nature. The fact that he even has 'possible pollinating range' in his 'worst case scenarios that must be avoided' mental checklist - that should probably worry him more than it does. But this world had been declared safe, absolutely, perfectly and completely. None of the local flora, fauna, or weird poky little rocks were going to make you do anything you'd regret later, or try to eat you.

He'd prodded a few things with his gun, just in case. It's not that he doesn't trust all the precautionary scans, it's just that experience has taught him to make absolutely sure, before turning his back on anything.

Lorne finds a good spot, good angles, good view through the trees. Parrish is already on his knees in a generic patch of forest, that looks like all the other generic patches of forest, getting excited about _something_. Lorne's not really listening, mostly because Parrish is talking way too fast, with that low level excitement he somehow manages to run at a constant rate. He doesn't seem to mind though.

It starts to rain, a slow drizzle that gradually turns into spots. Lorne pulls the collar of his jacket up, and wishes he'd brought his hat. It soaks everything within a few minutes, the ground Lorne's standing on is going to be thick enough to stick to his boots in less than ten, probably wet enough to sink him in twenty.

He squints upwards briefly, watching it fall through the leaves, watches them jerk and bounce under the torrent of it. The plants on the ground are shiny and slick. The leaves seem bigger too, like an optical illusion, or maybe they've folded out to collect it all. Just because the majority of worlds seem to _look_ like earth doesn't mean they haven't evolved in freakish ways. He remembers the plants that could sing. Yeah, that had led to more than a few drug tests. But there's no singing, these are just...big and wet and bright.

The leaves are really, _really_ bright. Really unnaturally bright under the drum of raindrops.

They feel ordinary though, they feel like wet leaves - Lorne isn't entirely sure how he got over to them. Or why he's touching them. Normally he's really good about _not_ touching things. At least he's not the only one though, Parrish has opened one out, and his face is so close that the stream of water falling out of it is splashing over his knees.

Lorne follows the trail of muddy footprints over to him.

He's pretty sure he had a question, or a purpose. But he just stands there, blinking water out of his eyes. There's something he needs to do, something _important_. The leaf springs back into the bush when Lorne tugs Parrish's hand away. The whole bush rustles, spraying droplets of rain everywhere, when Lorne pulls him to his feet.

Lorne would be lying if he said he didn't get a little satisfaction out of the way Parrish's stream of perpetually excited words turns into a muffled noise of surrender. He tastes like rainwater, and ever so slightly of coffee. Lorne takes two splashing steps back through the mud, until Parrish's back thumps into a tree, mouth briefly jerked away from his own - until he threads his fingers through soaking wet hair, and pulls his head down again. Lorne knows that the bark will leave rough grazes on Parrish's shoulders, and his own knuckles. He knows there'll be at least one leaf that he doesn’t quite manage to shake out of his hair and a smear of bark, or moss that ends up striped down his face. Probably left there by Parrish's fingers. Parrish has very long hands and they're distracting as hell. He tells him so, makes it sound like a complaint - no, not a complaint, an accusation. Because Parrish is always doing something with his hands, waving them around, touching things, and Lorne can't be expected to pay attention when he won't stop doing things like that.

His shirt won't come open, which is an unacceptable distraction. So Lorne just bunches the material and then pulls until it rips, before shoving it away - and then that long expanse of skin isn't enough, and it's a fight of wet cloth and sharp fingers and Parrish at some point manages to rip the entire waistband off of his pants, which is an unexpected and impressive feat of strength.

Lorne's pretty sure something weird is going on. Because he can be reckless, but he's not quite this reckless. Certainly not 'naked in the middle of a mission' reckless. He's fairly sure the protocol in this situation does not involve biting the hard curve of Parrish's hipbone. He should care that his weapon is at least two feet away - that he's barely paying attention to anything but Parrish's fingers curling over his cheek, and his ear, thumb tugging his mouth open. Which Lorne takes as a pointed reminder of why exactly he's on his knees in the mud. Or what he should be doing on his knees in the mud anyway.

Parrish is all narrow, angular limbs, and they're not exactly graceful but Lorne doesn't even care. They're strong and firm, and demanding enough  that he ends up with one leg curled over his shoulder, dragging him in. While his mouth works, full and wet, and he's the one pulling high, stunned noises out of Parrish's long throat, fingers scratching and digging at the bark. He can make out the broken syllable of his name, and it's amazing how someone can sound so surprised while he's doing this.

Lorne would very much like to press him into the tree, long legs pulled up around his waist - but he's smart enough to know that he has neither the strength, nor the flexibility to pull that off. Especially not when everything is slick with rainwater, and a few shades past desperate. Though he wants to - fuck, he wants to.

He's smart enough to know that this isn't quite right - for all that it's _good_.

He could spin Parrish around, press his face into the bark - and fuck that's a thought that forces him to get his own hand on his cock. Which makes him forget about anything else, all his intentions shoved aside for the way that the tight grip of his wet fist feels, and the sound that Parrish makes, like he's been gutted, fingers suddenly twisted and sharp in Lorne's hair.

Everything after that is just a dizzy rush of pleasure.

The next thing he registers is the sky, which is an odd shade of blue far above him. His whole body is prickling like he's been shocked, and his jaw hurts.

Parrish is an untidy sprawl of limbs next to him, narrow chest heaving.

"Damn it," Lorne says quietly, mostly at the gradually dissipating clouds. It doesn't seem like quite enough, so he says it again, adds a swear word for effect. The rich, fresh smell of wet foliage, and the stronger and much closer smell of mud overpowers everything.

Parrish says 'umm' in a confused, lost sort of way, like he honestly can't think of a single thing to say. Which may possibly be the end of the world, or a sign of the impending apocalypse at least. He doesn't even try to say anything else afterwards. There's just a strange, empty sort of quiet. Which is freaking Lorne out more than the sex, if he's honest with himself. He has a horrible feeling he's the one who's going to have to do damage control on this one.

He tries to remember the briefing they had on this. Something about apologies, personal space, and working out if anyone was traumatised.

"So," Lorne starts, as calmly as he can manage under the circumstance. "This is...."

"Fascinating," Parrish says quietly.

Which pretty much derails whatever Lorne was going for.

"What?"

"No, no, the rain, the -" Parrish is moving, hands pushing himself up out of the mud, and he's already talking like he didn't just have his brain completely fried.

A few seconds later there's a muddy hand, hauling Lorne to his feet, and his shirt is helpfully draped over his arm. He stares at it, wondering if he actually wants to put it back on. It's not like the state of his pants isn't already incriminating.

He's trying to ignore his own muddy hand print on Parrish's waist, and the fact that the other man's pants are still settled precariously on his hips. He wonders idly, bizarrely if he should do them up, before they fall off, because Parrish is already muttering about climate change, and adaptation, and also _touching_ things, like they didn't just learn that lesson a minute ago.

Scientists are, without doubt, the craziest people in the entire universe.

  



End file.
